Marin Readers' Forum for March 22

The Marin Telecommunications Agency is misguided in its attempt to set up and maintain a costly media center in the first place.

Larkspur is right in refusing this deal.

I'm an entertainment industry insider and I can attest that the ever-changing hardware and software needed to use and support the proposed center is well beyond the economic reach of any local government.

It's beyond the pale for most local TV stations. Comcast knows this and has offered the agency a deal akin to what the Dutch gave Native Americans for New York City.

They traded our county's most precious connectivity to one of our nation's most egregious monopolies for a handful of shekels and beads.

Now the PUC protects and serves Comcast's countywide exclusivity that our local officials handed to one of our newest corporate citizens. We shouldn't be surprised that they are acting like a sphincter muscle squeezing down on our access to the best that broadband can offer us.

Sadly, we are bereft of choice.

As a progressive I feel threatened and as a Hollywood literary agent I feel fleeced by a group of guys I know and have heard them call communities like ours targets of opportunity.

If Marin wants to run its own media center, it needs to recognize that many of its current residents are industry folks who can build, support and maintain a state-of-the-art media center, but none of us will step forward if Comcast or any other media monster has an exclusive hold on our community's access to the world at large.

None of us wants to contribute to the end of the information age. How about you?

John Thomas Ellis, Kentfield

MUSIC

Tam rock concerts

As one who attended the first and second music festivals on Mount Tamalpais, I was saddened that I might also have attended the last.

To think of them both as "rock festivals" is like saying a Ferrari and a Fiat 500 are both "cars."

The first event, in '67, was fabulous, if scary in terms of crowding, fire danger and parachutists dangling from trees.

The second, less than one quarter the size, was orderly to the extreme, with long food lines the biggest problem. A rock festival with no one smoking anything?

Astounding. And, in my view, good for the mountain.

On the spot, I joined the Tamalpais Conservation Club and thanked its volunteers for helping to put on the show.

Despite the current disagreement, I'll maintain my support for the club while planning to attend the next festival. Hope it doesn't take another 46 years.

Alan Hayakawa, Mill Valley

MARIN CITY

No more excuses

Regarding the headline "No one hurt as gunfire rocks Marin City," I find it amazing and disheartening that we've gone from reporting a crime as an aberrational event to the complacency of merely noting that there were none injured or dead from the crime.

I think it's time that our public officials started holding Marin City to a higher standard.

Supervisor Kate Sears, the sheriff and the head of the Marin Housing Authority need to get together and figure out what it will take to make Marin City safe for everyone.

Excuses based on privilege or non-privilege, middle class or lower class, black or white need to be discarded like yesterday's garbage.

If the sheriff needs to put a cop on every corner of Drake Avenue all night long to bring that area under control, he should get the necessary resources and do so.

Bob Mitchell, Sausalito

PLANNING

A tale of two cities

Kudos to IJ columnist Dick Spotswood for his March 19 column, "Mill Valley reins in its 'broken down' planning process".

It's a "two-fer."

Replace "Mill Valley" with "Corte Madera" and Spotswood's column is still spot-on.

Broken, pro-development, arrogant and hubris are all applicable to the current Corte Madera planning process.

Consider two of the recent "accomplishments" of the town Planning Department and Town Council.

Most outstanding is the development of the 180-unit Tamal Vista apartment complex. Why did the Town Council proceed with this development when it knew the Association of Bay Area Governments' numbers were in error?

Less publicized is the variance granted by the Town Council that freed the building from required setbacks.

Why did the Town Council grant this special privilege to the developer?

Congratulations to the citizens of Mill Valley for holding their officials accountable.

Wake-up Corte Madera. We need a council that listens to the citizens as well as the developers.

Roy Fray, Corte Madera

Community inconvenience

Whether it is payback for our activism or it is oversight, the Community Development Department has delivered a cruel blow to Marinwood-Lucas Valley.

The housing element meetings are meant for "community outreach."

Why not make it convenient for the community?

There are about a half dozen community rooms located conveniently in the community at no cost. The county chose a remote church on a hilltop on a Saturday afternoon when families are busy.

Since Marinwood-Lucas Valley received 71 percent of all affordable housing allocation in the 2012 Housing Element, it seems that is a small request.

Let's get started on the 2014 housing element with the right note of cooperation.

Stephen Nestel, San Rafael

Marin's building boom

Marin County residents should be concerned about the $1 billion of huge construction projects being railroaded through on the basis of faked data, state funding mandates and lack of realism in traffic planning.

We are told this expensive buildup is necessary to stop Marin's massive contribution to global warming, and to speed access for outsiders to employment centers, parklands and shopping venues.

Here are some more realistic "projections":

 Eastern Marin County will go into impassable gridlock when the $650 million Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit diesel trains block 85 crossings from Sonoma to Larkspur.

 Traffic congestion and pedestrian, pet and schoolchildren fatalities will inevitably escalate because the whole line runs right through the "urbanized" Highway 101 Marin corridor, where there is no experience with real rail crossings.

These huge projects are based on preposterous claims, such as the Metropolitan Transportation Commission's "projections" that Marin's Highway 101 corridor will be creating 130,000 new jobs by 2025.

The facts are that Marin County has a small, suburban/rural population of 252,409, just 2.07 percent more than in 2000.

Now the Golden Gate Bridge is coming back for more, escalating tolls on a yearly basis.

Let's stop these big-bucks social engineering projects and fix the badly potholed roads that all of us — bike riders, pedestrians and drivers alike — need to get around our county safely.

Phil Hardgrave, Forest Knolls

HEALTH CARE

Money over medical care

Nothing is more important to an individual or his family than their health.

It was good to see the IJ's March 9 Marin Voice column by Meilyn Santana, outreach director for Marin Community Clinics, addressing enrollment in the Affordable Care Act.

As we know ACA is a for-profit, insurance-driven product of Senate hearings.

Unfortunately expanding single-payer Medicare, which covers only those over 65, to include the least expensive and most profitable part of our population, then covered by the health insurance industry, was not seriously considered by the Senate committee or its generous health insurance lobbyists.

So we have the ACA. How "affordable" it is depends on what insurance companies charge.

It is ironic Marin Community Clinics is promoting ACA health insurance. Marin Community Clinics fortunately provides health care to those least able to afford expensive health insurance and does a great service for our community.

ACA offers levels of health insurance based on income. The lowest-income purchasers are only able to afford the highest-deductible policies.

Visualize a family or a single mom barely able to meet living expenses signing up with ACA to pay monthly insurance premiums. She has to pay all medical costs under the $5,000 deductible, and if she can pay the insurance premium, she thinks twice before getting medical care.

That's how serious health problems aren't caught in time, unless she has access to Marin Community Clinics.

However, there is a bright side. According to corporate information, Stephen Hensley, CEO of United Health Group, made $13.8 million in 2012, including base pay, bonuses, stock options and other awards. Being only one of hundreds of insurance company CEOs and executives, the cost of maintaining this good lifestyle will be tremendous, but is possible with ACA's premiums.

Unfortunately some folks will not be able to pay full premiums, in which case taxpayers will pay.

Congress could have cut out the insurance middleman, paying care providers directly as Medicare does, but that's why we (and lobbyists) pay Congress to make the tough decisions!

Brian Stompe, Novato

EDUCATION

Charter high school

We need to compare and contrast the New Tech high school curriculum to the best school districts in the U.S.

Not one school district of the Tamalpais Union High School District's caliber has adopted New Tech.

Among the schools that have there is a lack of representation in Northeast states that have some of the best schools.

The only school in Marin that dove head first into the swimming pool without looking was Sir Francis Drake High School.

No public school in Marin has ever implemented the International Baccalaureate standard. The Tam district voted to approve it, but Redwood failed to move forward, citing its cost, but the district had enough money to give its superintendent an $850,000 zero-interest loan to purchase a home.

St. Rita's School in Fairfax has moved forward.

It is time for a charter school outside of the sphere of Tam district.

I know where such a school could find some great math teachers recently made available.